I think they FINALLY realised that it is probably not very cost effective to run 3 different types of aircraft inter-island!

Maybe, but did they drop the right one?

F.O.G. - Seeing at the Tri was put on the route to make money I think the answer has to be no, the ATR & JS are both expensive a/c to operate on 10 minute sectors.

Blue have to return a profit by year end 2011 or that's it I was told a few months back at the time of them making all the ground staff redundant. Well we are a few weeks away from that deadline now & I am wondering how near (or far) away they are from being profitable.

Does anybody know if the inter island schedule that is now published for 2012 is the finished article? Or are there more flights to be added?

It doesn't look particularly good as is!

It looks as if the withdrawal of the Trislander is more about cutting the number of inter island seats rather than listening to passengers who apparently prefer to travel on the ATR or J32s. It appears that on weekdays the 7 Trislander flights have been replaced by 2 J32 flights. That equates to the loss of about 67 seats in each direction.

67 seats in each direction is a small fraction of the number of empty seats Blue Islands has, thanks to swamping the market with excess capacity!

Brake failure on Trislander G-BEDP this evening at GCI, the aircraft left the runway & ended up on the grass according to my Blue Island informant.

I think it was actually G-LCOC

Ayline - Just been sent a pic of incident, you are correct it was indeed OC.

If you think their fares are steep , try Melbourne- King Island(Bass strait), just a couple of weeks ago, £200 return for a 50 min trip in a saab340. Needless to say that was passed up , l like islands but not that much!

As an ex employee I have to say this is not a surprise & I am amazed it's taken so long.

All but 2 of the fleet tech yesterday resulting in long delays on the interisland services. It's not good for pax is it, I wonder if the MD would care to comment?

Provisional figures for the new Bournemouth Jersey route starting in November with 3 flights a week was 260 passengers carried making it about 10 per flight which is about a 53 % load factor .

Not bad for a new route in midst November good to see that quite a few flights are full over the Xmas period as well

whats happenin' eh?
 

Overheard a conversation at the BI check-in last week to say they have ordered another 'new' aircraft. I expect they mean new to BI. Anyone know anything ?

I guess another ATR 42 500, somebody mentioned they may be getting another this year a while ago. Whether its to replace the old 300 they use for some interisland, peak SOU and MAN flights or to expand/upgrade routes is anyone's guess.

The rumour of a 'new' 42-500 is quite old now, although nothing has appeared yet.
I would find it difficult to understand getting rid of the old 42-300 when it is about to go into maintenance for a big check (or should that be cheque) that is scheduled for a month.
I was told that someone, maybe Denim Air, were going to be wet leased in for that time, although they have used Scot Air previously.
The cabin crew will still be required as a company rep on board, but the flight crew have effectively got a month off, unless they are going to n/stop them in Jersey to fly the 500.

Are there no 42's that they could dry lease in?

They could dry lease from Air Conractors / ASL. But makes no sense doing a 1 month dry lease.

Have heard two rumours recently...

1) That a Denim Air Fokker 50 will be covering while one of the ATR's is on maintenance in April.

2) That Jetstream 31 G-LNKS is going to be leased.

Does anybody have any further info?

Thanks

Geo

Fokker 50 20233 PH-JXK Denim Air at MST 13apr12 with Blue Islands titl prior summer lease ex PT-SLK

Skyliner - aviation news & more

Will this "antique" be used to launch the rumoured new European route out of JER?